The Shepherd and the Star - Part VI
Daniels had managed to bypass the firewalls she had in place over the mainframe. As the remaining oxygen was pulled down through the elevator shaft, through the facility and out of the docking bay – he used what he knew from training to override the security protocols and restore the shields. Over the steady shriek of a fast gale, the sound of a distressed hum buzzed vociferously. After the shields sparked back to life across the external metal surfaces, the lights began to flicker back to life. It was then that the blast doors all across the base started to close, closing the remaining oxygen within. Daniels stopped covering his mouth and finally took a moment to rest as he leant against the console. He was oxygen starved and very disorientated, so he took no notice as another small explosion began to rock the facility. This one, as before, came from the docking bay at Solace’s foot. He heard a distant patter of someone climbing, and before long saw the Commander pull herself shakily up through the shaft, exhausted. She collapsed onto the floor, barely conscious, and the echo of the alarms took control of the sound waves again. *‘Commander?’ he said, bit by bit, as he felt himself slide down and sit with his back to the console as each of the screens above showed that their consoles were successfully rebooting. *‘She told me...’ the Commander said with her eyes closed before she gulped slowly and loudly ‘she provoked me into chasing her with one of the old ships...one of the old ships in the docking bay. Damn thing blew up on me.’ *‘...Damn thing,’ Daniels breathed in and out ‘she probably knew that you’d...go for it. Maybe, maybe she sabotaged it.’ *‘-Or maybe it was just old,’ she argued ‘it doesn’t matter either way. There’s no other way to get to her from here.’ There was a brief pause where the both of them surrendered to the gracelessness of their sudden composure. This was shortly interrupted by a loud beep which emanated from the console. Daniels struggled to pull himself up and flicked a switch, before he focused on the screen. *‘...The Morning Star has just-just pelted into orbit. They’re back. There’s a....there’s a message coming through, Commander.’ He fought to speak. He didn’t wait for her order to patch it through and instead just switched the speaker on. A familiar voice rung out... *‘Commander, this is Vahagnae of the Morning Star. We turned around as soon as we got the distress call. What’s happening down there? We’re picking up a lot of buzz from the surface.’ The captain explained distractedly ‘Commander?’ --- Her eyes shuffled and her eyelids broke apart at long last as she lay, being pulsed with remedial juices, on the bed in the medical bay. The rhythmic authority from Vahagnae’s voice as he debriefed someone in the background seemed enough to wake her from her short sleep. She pushed herself up and was immediately struck with a headache, so she sat and massaged her temple with one hand. *‘Commander.’ She heard Daniels voice and looked up. He saluted her as Vahagnae and another looked over, someone else dressed in unusual black robes and not soldier-like in any respect. He wasn’t in the military, but he didn’t look like an agent either. *‘...Captain?’ she finally spoke as she felt her eyes realign, and noticed what lay beyond the small porthole between the two. It was dark and glittery out there. *‘Welcome back to the ‘Star, Commander. We evacuated Solace. I would congratulate you but, you didn’t really save anyone.’ Vahagnae said with acidity to his words ‘Not that I expected you too in this sort of situation.’ *‘Who’s the ninja?’ she asked and stared to the man in black beside him. Vahagnae didn’t seem to be in the mood for formal introductions and so he stepped to one side. *‘I think from the way you word things alone that we can carefully presume that your neural network has become corrupted.’ The man said loudly, and then looked away from the Commander ‘Daniels, where was the General heading?’ Daniels retained his silence but dropped the salute, and instead glanced from Vahagnae to the Commander. *‘The General was-...’ she began. *‘-I wasn’t asking you.’ He broke the sentence ‘You’re a broken soldier, and you need to be fixed or destroyed at my order, Commander. Keep that in mind. Now Colonel, I asked you a questi-...’ *‘-Ah so you’re one of the bosses, one the Agency’s top guys.’ The Commander took his sentence and sat on it ‘I get it.’ *‘Commander, shut up.’ The man ordered ‘I’m already leaning towards dismantling you.’ *‘Don’t talk to me like I’m a machine!’ she heard herself yell, rip the injections from her arm and jump to her feet ‘Talk to me like that again and I will kill you.’ *‘I thought as much. Guards!’ the agency head called and waited for the doors to open, which they proceeded too to allow entrance to two armoured men holding rifles. *‘Wait now, just hold-on.’ Vahagnae stepped between the Commander and her certified superior ‘This is my ship; I don’t want any more deaths today. The General is the one that’s gone wild, not the Commander. Let’s just calm down.’ *‘Captain Vahagnae, we’ve had this discussion. The Agency-...’ the man tried to make a statement. *‘-No! I’ve told you. I’ve told you both! Not on my ship! Okay?’ Vahagnae stopped him and nodded to the guards, knowing that they would respect his instruction before they turned and left again ‘my crew will listen to me and me alone, not the Agency and the UA if they move to something drastic. Now let’s discuss what needs to be discussed, before I put you both in the brig...In the same cell.’ *‘Alright, captain.’ The Commander’s boss submitted after a short pause ‘Okay, fine. I need to know the facts though, so Daniels where was the General heading...?’ *‘The rim of the solar system. I’d show you on the computers but, well, she fried the whole thing when she led the uprising.’ He clarified and leant on the edge of an empty bed ‘It’s moving all of the time though, we don’t know if it’s in the same place it was when she left Solace.’ *‘What?’ the man queried ‘what is ‘it’’? *‘An asteroid? Rogue moon?’ Vahagnae guessed, and saw Daniels glance back over to the Commander ‘Well, what is it?’ *‘...An alien spacecraft, adrift on the border of the system. The General believes that she can use it to destroy the Agency and resolve the exertion of the people of the UA.’ The Commander said and revelled in the cold and prickly silence that followed ‘In other words, captain, she’ll figure out what it is and how to turn its weapons online, and then she’ll most likely bring it to Earth-...’ *‘-But that’ll bring chaos!’ the boss panicked ‘What does she hope to gain from this?’ *‘She considers herself a revolutionary; a hero even. She believes the system of our government is all wrong. She murdered the majority of Solace’s colonists just to prove that. She’s a terrorist, sir.’ She continued ‘But a terrorist who has the power to bring the entire solar system to its knees.’ *‘Why though? What started this?’ Vahagnae broke in. *‘Her neural implants, most probably. Like mine, hers have gone a bit crazy. The difference is that I’m not after world domination. I was actually prepared to go and get them fixed, as soon as I caught the General anyway.’ She responded quickly. *‘Oh, like you’re up for that. You’re in no shape for a mission, Commander...’ her boss told her explicitly ‘Don’t you dare presume that the Agency would allow you to go after her. You’re just as a liability as she is!’ * ‘With all due respect, sir,’ Daniels’s voice crept in from outside of the discussion ‘The Commander fought against the General and survived, and she also is the only one with the right sort of knowledge to pull this kind of thing off. She earned a lot of allies because of her actions on Solace. She tried to bring the General down-...’ * ‘-And look where it got us, Colonel. Where’s the General now? Off joyriding on what could potentially be the biggest threat that out worlds have ever seen. We can’t rely on a malfunctioning agent when there are those out there who would probably do a better job. We’ve earned our losses on Solace due to our mistakes and-...’ the boss persisted. * ‘-You earned your losses? The General was right about the Agency! It’s a corrupt system. She told me that most people who die on Earth or the colonies are killed by the Agency just because they show some kind of potential threat against what they consider a fair, democratic system!’ the Commander screamed and leapt forward, but Vahagnae kept both of them apart ‘You’re the one making the decisions that it isn’t your right to make. The system is wrong!’ * ‘You’re just as bad as her then-...’ he ignored her plea. *‘-Stop!’ Vahagnae ordered ‘now stop this!’ * ‘Sirs, please!’ Daniels came in ‘Nothing’s ever going to happen if we keep this up. We’re wasting time.’ * ‘No. I’m wasting my time. You people are just revelling in it.’ The boss shook his head and turned to leave. The Commander, predicting this, yanked out a pistol from Vahagnae’s belt and shoved him aside, then pushed her boss to the floor and held him down against the bed. * ‘You’re wasting all of our time!’ she began to crush her boss’s throat and spoke clear ‘See, I know the Agency now more than ever. I know that it was their lack of faith in people that led to this. You are humans using other humans as weapons. We’re still using the same tactics of our ancestors; it’s just different technology now. It all goes back to Rapture, back to that meeting that world leaders had in Solace. They knew that there was no age of peace to follow, no calm after the storm had hit, just a long, long period of mourning and suffering. It’s still on, even now. They made the Agency so that there was an organisation that could make the calls that had to be made, the calls that those with a moral code hate to make, so the system makes them invisible! But it’s still there, lurking in the shadows of the public and their United Alliance. The General’s point is that if humanity continues to grow like this, like conquerors on a leash, then we will all become monsters. That’ll be our legacy. No matter how this ends. Things for Earth will change! If you don’t let me chase her down and drag her back home, it’ll end in millions more casualties. Just count how many colonies it takes to get to Earth, all of the asteroids and moons under the UA’s control – all wiped out during her journey.’ * ‘This is mutiny, Commander. I don’t endorse anything that engages your involvement. The Agency will not allow it...!’ the boss hissed and struggled, but failed against the strength of an agent. The Commander, in control of the situation, pulled back with Vahagnae’s pistol still at aim ‘Like faith ever got the UA anywhere. Faith instigated the Rapture in the first place. Faith brought upon us the biggest war in our history, and now you think that faith is the right way to go? Bullshit. Faith in people doesn’t get anyone anywhere. Faith in anything else is just absurd. Faith itself is just an absolution from the ‘sins’ of humanity, that’s you what you don’t understand. You want me to make an order to bring faith back into the system that was built on destroying it.’ * ‘That’s not what I meant. I didn’t mean devout faith. I meant ambition, something that the General has. A goal. For all of us. She’s got it in her mind what she wants to do, and all she needs to do it is to board that spaceship, learn just some of its secrets and potentially doom us all.’ The Commander illuminated her point. * ‘Please, Commander. The General’s faith will be her downfall, she’s just a shepherd. A shepherd chasing a star, like the ancient scriptures once said. Her passion and her ‘ambition’ will bring her to her own end. As of now, I’m authorising a mission to that ship by a group of our top agents, to infiltrate and capture or kill the General, then ride that vessel back to Earth for study.’ The boss caught his breath, sat up and watched the Commander throw Vahagnae his pistol back ‘A mission that, I assure you, you will not be a part of. If you believe in any part of our system then you will stand down. The General’s neural implants have gone berserk, and yours will go the same way if you allow them to. You both need to be fixed. Now, excuse me.’ He stood, brushed his robes and quickly left. * ‘That wasn’t necessary.’ Vahagnae grunted. * ‘Didn’t make much of a dent either. What are you going to do?’ Daniels asked and folded his arms. * ‘....Something.’ the Commander promised ‘I’m bringing her back.’ in Part VII